A mobile terminal device, like a mobile phone and a PDA (Personal Data Assistance, Personal Digital Assistants) is becoming popular. In these days, a display unit of the mobile terminal device is getting larger and contents to be displayed on the display unit are upgraded. It becomes required than ever before to make operations easy to understand for a user by making the mobile terminal device multifunctional and upgraded so that a user fully utilizes the mobile terminal device.
Therefore, a touch panel display is employed in order to achieve understandability of operations while utilizing high-quality display. The touch panel display includes a function of a touch panel that an object touched by a user is inputted as input data and a function of the display unit which displays a result of an operation. With respect to display data displayed on the touch panel display, when a user points (touch) the touch panel display by using a finger, a pen, or the like, processes of cursor movement through a key operation and selection decision by using an ENTER key can be shortened. Thereby, operations in which input frequency is decreased are achieved.
Further, a technique of gesture input is attained as a technology using the touch panel display. The gesture input means that a user touches the touch panel display to input a predetermined trajectory (input trajectory). When a predetermined trajectory 213-1 is registered in a storage unit of a mobile terminal device as shown in FIG. 14A, and when an input trajectory 220 corresponds to the trajectory 213-1 as shown in FIG. 14B, the mobile terminal device activates and executes a function corresponding to the trajectory 213-1.
However, a current way of the gesture input includes following problems.
Initially, a first problem is described. In the gesture input, a user has to draw the same trajectory as predetermined trajectory data as the input trajectory. When a plurality of types of trajectory data exist, a user has to remember the plurality of trajectory data. In this case, it is expected that a user fails to utilize the gesture input due to faulty memory or input of an ambiguous trajectory. In this case, since an input trajectory 221 do not correspond to the trajectory 213-1 as shown in FIG. 14B, the mobile terminal device neither activates nor executes a function desired by a user.
Next, a second problem is described. The mobile terminal device executes processing based on a user's touching operation of the touch panel display or a user's operation of an input unit, and displays display data generated based on the processing on the touch panel display. At this time, when displaying the display data on the touch panel display, the mobile terminal device does not always accept the gesture input. That is because both software responding to the gesture input and software not responding thereto exist. Suppose that while the software not responding to the gesture input works, the display data used in the software is displayed on the touch panel display and a user draws a predetermined trajectory while touching the touch panel display. Then, the software does not execute processing. The user, however, cannot determine whether the reason why the software fails to execute processing is because the mobile terminal device is not in a state of accepting the gesture input since the working software does not meet the gesture input, because the drawn trajectory is wrong, or because the gesture input is carried out by mistake. Therefore, it is desired that a user is capable of recognizing whether or not the gesture input is accepted.
Patent document 1 describes a mobile terminal. The mobile terminal includes a camera input interface which executes a performance associated with a movement trajectory of a determination object inputted from a camera. The mobile terminal is characterized in further including means for outputting operation guidance information representing a correspondence relation between the movement trajectory of the determination object and the performance associated with the movement trajectory, and means for drawing the movement trajectory of the determination object, input of which is accepted, so as to be overlaid on display contents of a display.
Patent document 2 describes a user interface device. The user interface device includes storage means, trajectory analysis means, gesture search means, guide trajectory display means, and command calling means. The storage means stores a gesture to which a predetermined command is allocated and a guide trajectory leading the gesture. The trajectory analysis means analyzes a user's operation trajectory on a trajectory input device. The gesture search means searches one or more than one gesture corresponding to the operation trajectory in a gesture stored in the storage means, each time the trajectory analysis means analyzes the user's operation trajectory. The guide trajectory display means acquires, from the storage means, the guide trajectory searched by the gesture search means and displays the guide trajectory, and deletes the displayed guide trajectory of the gesture when the gesture previously searched by the gesture search means does not accord with the user's operation trajectory. When the gestures searched by the gesture search means are confined to one, the command calling means calls the command allocated to the gesture.